Cosmetic and personal care products are available in various forms and one of the forms that are desired by many consumers is a clear aqueous product. At the same time, the consumer expects that such a product will provide desirable cosmetic benefits to keratinous substrates such as hair and skin.
Further, consumers prefer products that can serve more than one function. For example, with respect to hair care, consumers generally prefer a product that can clean and condition their hair in a single step. Such dual functionality can often be found with water insoluble ingredients, such as, for example, oils that condition the hair.
A sufficient amount of such oils is required to condition hair or skin. However, it has been difficult to provide clear personal care compositions that incorporate such amounts so that the compositions can serve more than one function.
Certain water-insoluble ingredients, which are oftentimes desirable for the treatment of keratinous substrates, are inherently difficult to incorporate into aqueous systems, such as shampoos, conditioners and skin care compositions, without forming a traditional emulsion in either cream or lotion form. Oftentimes, the presence of such ingredients at levels that would impart appreciable cosmetic benefits to hair or skin and/or properties to cosmetic and personal care products result in unstable formulations resulting in undesirable phase separations in aqueous systems.
Therefore, in the formulation of clear aqueous compositions, water-insoluble compounds do not lend themselves to being used therein, due to their inability to significantly associate with the water present in the system. As a result, the presence of these water-insoluble ingredients is generally minimal in personal care products and cosmetic products that employ aqueous systems. Thus, the difficulties in formulating such compositions deprives the consumer of products that can better deliver cosmetic benefits to hair and skin such as conditioning, cleansing, coloring of hair, styling of hair, skin care, and better application and spreadability of products.
Thus, it is desirable to provide clear compositions, such as cleansing compositions that incorporate oils in order to provide multiple cosmetic benefits to keratinous substrates. It is also desirable to provide methods of cleansing and conditioning keratinous substrates with such compositions.